This invention relates to railroad freight cars. It relates particularly to a multipurpose freight car adapted to carry both bulk and palleted freight or grain.
Most railroad freight cars are designed and built to carry a single commodity. For example, hopper cars designed to carry coal are not suitable for carrying cement and vice versa. As a result, single commodity freight cars frequently travel empty between ladings and do not produce freight revenue for the railroads.
The idea of a multipurpose freight car capable of carrying several different commodities has been considered many times over the past 100 years as shown by the United States patents listed below:
U.S. Pat. No. 157,481--Power (1874) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 252,830--Wilson (1882) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 371,224--Souder (1887) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 652,929--Souder (1900) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 669,876--Critchlow (1901) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 820,240--Mulock (1906) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 1,019,911--Otis (1912) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 1,067,719--Curry (1913) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 2,186,700--Johnson (1940) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,087,759--Worster (1963) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,595,175--Austill (1971) PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,478,155--Cena (1984)
None of these previous multipurpose freight cars were successful due primarily to the difficulties in loading and unloading the different commodities.